GIS.org.nz

WORKSHOPS: ANZLIC SPATIAL RESOURCE DISCOVERY AND ACCESS TOOLKIT

Three ANZLIC (Australia New Zealand Land Information Council) workshops related to geospatial metadata are being held in Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland in early August. The aim is to train people who in turn can act as trainers in their own organisations with respect to geospatial metadata. Come along and learn about the recently released, free, standalone ANZMet Lite metadata tool, and how to use it plus metadata guidance resources in your organisation.

Some great news out today - the Ministry for the Environment has announced the re-release of a couple of their datasets under the Creative Commons licence (technically the CCv3-BY). MFE's page is here. MFE's Koordinates.com stream is here.

Two major environmental databases are set to become more accessible and easier to use following the re-release of these digital maps by the Ministry for the Environment.

The conference programme for GeoCart'2008 has been released. I've just added this to the calendar, and for those that don't know, GeoCart'2008 is being held at the University of Auckland on the 1st to the 3rd of September. More details are available on their website.

It's not necessarily spatial, but there is a lot of good and relevant work going on in the eGovernment space. To make it easier to find some of these, I've created a news aggregation feed that points at these eGovernment resources.

In an email out late last week John from the NZ Geospatial Office announced the following...

Hi All
The New Zealand Geospatial Office is pleased to announce that John Clegg from ProjectX has been awarded second prize for his Mashup - Crime 10K.

Check out Crime 10K @ http://blog.projectxtech.com/page/2/ or http://www.gis.org.nz/wiki/Geospatial_Mash-up_2008_Participants

Cheers
John

Congratulations to John, not only for winning a prize, but for also actually completing a working solution! :) Thanks also to the New Zealand Geospatial office, and the other central and local government organisations that rallied around the mashup.

After the strong turnout at the initial Mashup meeting at the start of May, it is disappointing, but perhaps not unexpected to have so few completed entries. I wonder if the short time frame - e.g. less than 2 months from discussions to submission resulted in too tight a timeline, especially as those that have the skills to mash something up in a short time are probably quite busy with work already? I hope that the Geospatial Office does not lose heart from the low number of submitted entries. I would have liked to have played with the data in Sahana, but I think Sahana needs another 6-12 months before it will be ready to support that, and I certainly wasn't in a position to currently build something from scratch!

Perhaps a competition needs more time to be run? Given that most participants would be doing it as a voluntary effort anyway it may need a 3-6 month timeframe to get more teams participating.

Alternatively, perhaps we look at moving away from a competitive, team-based, do-it-in-your-own-time approach, and try something like a soild 2 days to work through some geospatial issues or a particular theme to provide some focus - for example a mashup to bring a pile of different GIS systems together and work on interoperability around a certain issue. My favourite would be around a disaster scenario as that provides a very dynamic environment where lots of new data is being produced, and mashups are needed to aggregate data from many different organisations, and it is needed in a timely manner.

Who knows? Perhaps trying to get it all nailed in one weekend, or a combined Friday/Saturday (one day off work, one day of weekend) may be a lot easier for most. It also has the added benefit of throwing a pile of people in the same room(s) and setting them to a task, rather than providing an independent, work-at-your-own-pace challenge.

I'd be interested to hear some comments on this issue!

The MapInfo New Zealand User Group have released their Call for Presentations for the annual User Group conference to be held in Wellington in September. More details are contained in the attached pdf.

By telling your GIS story, you’re communicating your best practices, successes, and innovative GIS applications with others who face the same day-to-day challenges. We look forward to hearing about your exciting work in the following areas.

• Pitney Bowes MapInfo
• Case Studies
• Local Government
• Web mapping
• Transportation
• Civil Defence
• Retail
• Application Development

Authors will present a 20 to 30 minute live presentation as part of the 2008 MUGNZ Conference. Abstracts and papers will also be published as part of the conference proceedings.

The first of a few conference announces we're going to circulate here. Yes, I know this one starts today. Note that we will also be including conferences in the gis.org.nz calendar as well.

How GIS can transform organisations
23 & 24 June 2008. Duxton Hotel, Wellington.

This unique and inaugural event will focus on the ability of GIS systems to provide true value through enabling practical solutions to enhance business performance. The event will feature innovative uses of GIS systems from around New Zealand, and how GIS tools are used to provide real business benefits across a range of industries.

The programme will take you through the journeys many organisations have overcome and the challenges associated with GIS to help integrate the tools into everyday business processes. Numerous case studies will demonstrate how results can be achieved and provide plenty of practical solutions to the big issues. Explore lessons learned and make sure you are on the right path to success.

For more in-depth information and hands-on learning, there are also separately bookable half-day workshops:
Gaining Buy-in for Investment in GIS
Developing and Implementing Processes that Ensure Data Quality and Integrity

To view the programme in its entirety, please click on the following link:
http://www.brightstar.co.nz/nz/inaugural-geospatial-information-systems-summit.html

I have just uploaded the following guideline to gis.org.nz. It is also accessible in the wiki.

The purpose of this Guideline is to unlock the government Geospatial Divide that is holding back NZ Inc.

Geospatial data is a key component of the governments Digital Content Strategy, and Geospatial Strategy, key initiatives of the Digital Strategy with its vision of “New Zealand will be a world leader in using information and technology to realise its economic, social, environmental and cultural goals, to the benefit of all New Zealanders.”

This Guideline focuses on the key questions of;

• What information to deliver
• What web channels should be used to deliver that information
• What web presence should be used
• What information barriers should be used if any

LINZ is undertaking a survey to understand the usage of NZTopoOnline. I would encourage everyone to fill it out and let them know how you use the site, and where they could make improvements.